


The Tower

by Nope



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-01-04
Updated: 2009-01-04
Packaged: 2018-11-02 23:07:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10954620
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nope/pseuds/Nope
Summary: They meet, until they don't.





	The Tower

The first time Rose meets Mickey (which is not the first time Mickey meets Rose, because linearity gets a bit slippery once time-travel is involved) she says "gah-ah" and slobbers and waggles her hand, babies not being known for their conversational skills.

Toddlers aren't known for their dexterity, either, and later, whenever Jackie brings it up, Mickey huffs and says "I was three," and Rose either calls him a cradle-snatcher or laughs about how he scarred her for life and Mickey says "I was three!"

Which, he feels, is a perfectly valid reason for dropping the baby on her head.

.

The first time Mickey meets Rose (that she can remember clearly, which is actually the sixth time they've met) he says "yarg" and drops his pizza because they're pressed together in a busy lunch queue and she's just accidentally stabbed him in the back of the hand with a fork.

"Oh god, oh shi-- Sorry," she says, aghast.

"Yeah," he says. "Watch it, eh?"

He licks the cut, little red marks, and she smiles, trying not to laugh.

"Yeah," she says, grabbing her lunch and edging around him. "Sorry."

He watches her go.

"You're in there," Chris laughs.

"Fuck off."

.

It's not that big a school, or an estate, and for all their difference in age, huge now, but getting smaller all the time (although later he will gain a year on her, then three) they keep running into each other (they always did and never noticed). She's this odd combination of childish and mature that he finds both alarming and alluring (although he'd never use either word) and she has backbone, and a voice on her, she can give as good as she gets, and then she's fifteen, somehow, and saying, "are you gonna kiss me then, or what?"

.

So, of course, she dumps him.

It's not like they were serious. Sure they snuck off on breaks and made out and Mickey had touched her tits that one time, but nothing really big. A few movie dates. Mostly when they'd gone out, it had been group things, bowling, or ice-skating, she'd liked that.

Mickey mopes around until Gran smacks him one, and then he pretends not to and when his friends ask him what's up, he makes up some shit about his A-levels and changes the conversation.

Rose goes and blows off school to blow Jimmy Stone, the bastard.

.

Mickey thinks he's one of those people that things just happen to. By the time he learns differently, it's almost too late; in a way, it is. But, before that, he drifts through his A-Levels and the months after while half his friends bugger off to university, and there's a friend of a friend thing, and he ends up working on cars and he's good at it and not ambitious, so they take him on full time, and he works and he drifts and one day he slides out from under a Peugeot and looks up into that smile again.

.

It's Christmas, and he has a hat, and there's mistletoe, and they kiss, again, for the first time, maybe, adults now, he supposes, though she's kept that mix of innocence and strength.

Well, he thinks, as he pushes her up against the wall and she grinds her hips against him, not so much of the innocence.

Their first time is stupid and awkward, fumbled condoms and finished too fast, but he wipes that stupid, sad, pitying look off her face with his fingers and tongue, and then does it again, for spite, and because she makes the most delicious squeak.

.

They settle into comfortable, cosy routines, because this is what Mickey does, he drifts, he hasn't learnt better yet. When she calls, he comes running. That's love, right?

Sometimes, she even comes first. That's love.

So he drifts. And things happen. Like:

"Did I mention it travels in time?"

And maybe this too, is routine. She leaves, she returns, back, forward, in, out, in, out. Don't forget the protection. Don't want accidents.

But she loses a year, or he does, and it's never the same. She changes, so much, and he does, though slower, coming around the long, hard way.

.

By the time he's learned to make choices, she's already made hers, and it's the sort of forever he's not in.

He takes her, once, on the console, after France, and he wonders if Rose knows it's all about the Doctor, if she would care if she did. She pulses around him, and he murmurs her name against her hair, but she says nothing.

Mickey leaves. He makes that choice. Eventually he returns, and that's his choice too.

When she comes with him, it's not her choice at all. Mickey isn't stupid. He knows how this, how she, goes now.

.

When she turns up in his bed, he knows she wants something, but he's never been able to say no to her.

"I've been thinking," she says, afterwards, still flushed and glowing, his fingers in her hair, that smile.

The following conversation has 'dimensional cannon' in it too often for his tastes. But he'll help. Of course he will. Even if she doesn't get it. Even if she never will.

"I dropped you on your head on purpose," he says.

She smacks his arm, but she laughs, and this is what he makes himself remember later, not what happens afterwards.

.

In the end, they go separate ways. As separate as they ever get; they are a part of each other, and always will be. She made him better, and he made her ... well, that's the thing; he's never known the answer to that one, not really.

They're in different universes, again, and she has her Doctor thing, and he has the wide, open, endless future. So he'll think of her sometimes, and smile, or not, over a drink or three, and when he falls, he'll get right back up again.

And if they ask, he will say: it is defended.


End file.
